𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗗𝗮𝗺𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀

The vibrant banner exclaims “Trends, Damned Trends, and Statistics”,
Elaborately decorated with the claims of miracle cures and predictive remedies,
The barker of trending novelties, exaggerated claims of future-bedazzled baubles and bangles,
Sets a stage for whimsical stories of “how abouts” and “maybes” and “ifs”.

Yet behind the rickety wagon walls lie the familiar ingredients of dominance and extraction,
Evidence of fantastical potions brewed from the same cauldron that caused the disease,
The same vat that summoned the calamities and hexes that the salesman gleefully promotes.
Technologies and shifts and wonders and fears all birthed from a shriveled matrix without life.

Each trending potion is said to contain unique powers of “never before” change,
But they all come from a single rotting stew, a mishmash of familiar exploitative elements,
Draining the color from reality until nothing is left but memories of what might have been.
And still, the barker rolls away from the market square to thunderous applause.

The actual cure is harder to imagine than the elixirs that never heal.

*

P.S. According to Genevieve Carlton at All That’s Interesting…

At the turn of the 20th century, a scam artist named Clark Stanley advertised bottles of rattlesnake oil that purportedly treated everything from arthritis to sore throats — but the product was really just mineral oil and beef fat… In the mid-19th century, around 180,000 Chinese laborers came to the United States. Many of them took jobs building the Transcontinental Railroad. These backbreaking, low-wage positions often left the workers in physical pain. Chinese railroad workers brought medicines from their home country to help them cope. One of these was snake oil. According to a 2007 report in Scientific American, the oil, which was derived from the Chinese water snake, contained high levels of inflammation-reducing omega-3 fatty acids. When workers rubbed the product on their stiff joints, they felt better… In 1893, a man named Clark Stanley introduced his “rattlesnake oil” at the Chicago World’s Fair — but it didn’t have a drop of snake in it. At the time, there was little to no regulation in the American pharmaceutical industry, so hucksters like Stanley could make whatever claims they wanted about their products… However, Stanley erased the Chinese railroad workers who introduced America to their cure. Instead, he made up a story of Hopi medicine men who taught him their secrets. His product was a hit — but it didn’t actually come from snakes at all.

Interesting, eh? It’s why we apply the moniker of “Snake Oil Salesman” to anything today that falsely purports to come from a powerful source and offers amazing capabilities. When we think about “trends”, “trend reports”, and “trend analysis” in this way, do they really come from the future… a place of cracks, edges, and transformation? Or do they really come from “THE FUTURE” — the official and dominant narrative that seeks to maintain relevance through extrapolation and progress — a place that offers only more of the same, but with a different label?